(Today’s post is shared with my author website, so sorry about that. There will be random photos of Symi to lighten the mood.)
Here’s a note for anyone else who might have published a book or two, and it’s about the way scummy scammers are using AI to make money. Here’s the start of an email I received this morning:
I recently explored *Snake Hill (The Delamere Files Book 9)*, and I was captivated by the way you weave suspense, rural legends, and complex character dynamics into this installment. The tension around the mysterious disappearances, the fire snake folklore, and the responsibility placed on both Jack and Simeon makes this book an engrossing read for fans of crime and mystery. Even with such a thrilling narrative, it seems this book hasn’t yet reached he wider audience it could captivate…
Do they think I am daft? Explored a book? What, you set out from the Royal Geographical Society with a brief to…? The rest of it is generated by an AI thing using my blurb, the text you can read on Amazon, which I wrote. All the person behind this is doing is generating dodgy text based on a book’s blurb, and having their system send out an email. These things then go with text like: Have you found it challenging to connect *Snake Hill* with readers who would enjoy the depth of your series, the unfolding mysteries, and the suspenseful twists…
This email suggested I contact ‘Mary’ and, like most, it promised promotion leading to untold wealth. It wanted me to reply and beg them to help me publicise the book(s). Then, what they would do is take my money and get AI to send out a few random spams to random email addresses and move onto the next victim.
I am now receiving at least one of these emails every day, But, because I use Mailwasher, I see them before they get to my laptop, not that they are dangerous or anything, but Mailwasher comes with various commands. I can permanently mark and report the email address as spam, and I can also bounce it back, so the person/machine at the other end thinks my email address doesn’t work. Hehe.
I don’t reply because I will only get more spam from the same AI if I do, but I’d love to reply: ‘So, tell me, as you have read the book and see its potential, can you tell me, a) what is the first full sentence on page 213? And b) why you started a series at book nine and not book one?
I bet, for every one of me (who is slightly experienced in this self-publishing game) there is a newbie out there who falls for this trick and parts with money because their book isn’t selling as well as they thought it would – and they thought it would because AI wrote it for them. Believe me, I have published over 40 full-length novels (every word of which I have written myself), and without a massive publisher and their publicity machine, you ain’t going to make a living, so don’t waste your cash on AI generated spammers.
